Visit Marshfield Campaign gets $12,750 grant to promote tourism

WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAW) - The Wisconsin Department of Tourism recently announced $190,700 awarded in Joint Effort Marketing grants.

This Visit Marshfield Campaign was awarded $12,750 of the JEM grants. The grants provide partnership funding to help nonprofit Wisconsin organizations promote tourism.

“About $50 to $60 million dollars come to our community through tourism and travelers,” said Matt McLean, executive director of Visit Marshfield.

Before the pandemic, Marshfield accounted for over half of the visitor spending in Wood County. Now, the grant will help the city continue to grow its tourism efforts.

“Really we’re down about 40% last year, so that hurt our restaurants, a lot of our hotels, and our budgets as well,” said McLean.

Visit Marshfield’s executive director expects it to take about two to three years to rebound from the pandemic.

“Helps us with website development, we use it for some print media, we are also doing some video projects so it really ties in well with our marketing plan for 2022,” said McLean.

The city is working to reinvent historic buildings and attractions to remake them into new sites to captivate visitors.

“The folks who review these grant applications are always looking for new a innovate ways of driving consumers into local destinations across Wisconsin,” said Anne Sayers, secretary-designee for the Wisconsin Department of Tourism.

The City of Marshfield is looking forward to hosting one of the largest gymnastics events in the state and the Central Wisconsin State Fair.

To get more information on events happening in Marshfield visit their website at https://visitmarshfield.com/.